The parents of Abdul-Nabi al-Sadiq didn’t know that the price for receiving the corpse of their son is a certificate declaring that he committed suicide.
Friend killed in break up of Rabia sit-in
Thirty-four-year-old Abdul-Nabi al-Sadiq was a pharmacist from the Anshas al-Raml village, north of Cairo. He was shot in the head on August 14, the day the Egyptian army stormed protestors holding a sit-in in the Rabia al-Adawiya and the al-Nahda Squares in Cairo, killing hundreds of mainly pro-Morsi demonstrators .
The parents of Abdul-Nabi al-Sadiq didn’t know that the price for receiving the corpse of their son is a certificate declaring that he committed suicide.
Friend killed in break up of Rabia sit-in
Thirty-four-year-old Abdul-Nabi al-Sadiq was a pharmacist from the Anshas al-Raml village, north of Cairo. He was shot in the head on August 14, the day the Egyptian army stormed protestors holding a sit-in in the Rabia al-Adawiya and the al-Nahda Squares in Cairo, killing hundreds of mainly pro-Morsi demonstrators .
“I didn’t think of anything at that moment, I just rushed to him and carried him. His blood was running and covering me. I was praying for him not to die and leave me,” recalls Abdul Rahman al-Rizq, an engineer from the Anshas al-Raml village, himself a protester in the Rabia al-Adawiya Square and an eyewitness to the death of his friend Abdul-Nabi al-Sadiq.
Al-Rizq says the loss of his friend was a “disaster”, but that recovering the corpse, which was taken to al-Hussein Univeristy Hospital, compunded the misery. “I knew that he was dead but I went to the field hospital, which had been destroyed, and was not in a position to receive new injured people. Doctors put the new corpses on the sidewalks and inside the mosque in the Rabia al-Adawiya Square which was all burnt,” al-Rizq told Correspondents.
Corpses on the sidewalks
As hopsitals and morgues were overwhelmed on August 14 by hundreds of bodies of victims of violent clashes between the military and protesters in Rabia, al-Rizq witnessed a harrowing scene. “The victims’ corpses were lying on the ground. There wasn’t space in the fridges for all the corpses and the weather was extremely hot,” says al-Rizq of the al-Hussein hospital when he arrived to take his friend’s body. “There was a bad smell and lots of people gathering. They were crying and shouting in the hope of getting their reports on the death of their relatives.”
Amidst the chaos, Al-Rizq found his friend’s body. “The corpse of -alSadiq stayed for two days at the al-Hussein University Hospital,” said al-Rizq, adding that “they were trying to pressure us to accept to take the corpse in return for signing a declaration acknowledging that he committed suicide.”
Families prevented from collecting bodies of dead relatives
Al-Rizq says the military would only release the victims’ bodies to relatives willing to sign a declaration saying their loved one committed suicide. “In each minute, we were losing our temper. The corpses started to smell bad and every now and then an officer would come and pressure people to sign the suicide declaration in return for giving them the corpses of their sons.”
As security forces continued to force relatives to sign suicide declarations, families of the dead threatened to burn down the hospital, says al-Rizq, who waited as the public prosecutor and his team did autopsies on all the bodies. Meanwhile, some families smuggled the bodies of their relatives away, says Al-Rizq.
“People started to call for help and to beg those in charge to expedite the routine procedures, but to no avail. We were obliged to wait until each corpse was checked by the public prosecution team, which was responsible for eight other hospitals. This prompted dozens of people to run away with the corpses of their sons, saying: ‘We want to bury our sons the way we like. We do not need permission from the government,'”recalls al-Rizq.
Doctors refuse to sign suicide declarations
One doctor, who requested anonymity, refused to sign the suicide decarations at the military’s request. “I strongly refused to pressure people to sign such a declaration and all the doctors who were present at the hospital supported me and refused to write reports which contradict the reality,” said the doctor.
The doctor confirmed that there were similar cases that took place at the Galal University Hospital, where clear instructions were given to the manager not to admit the corpses of those killed in Rabia al-Adawiya and the al-Nahda Squares. “The manager of the hospital told the doctors not to write reports explaining the reason for injury or death,” he said.
Dr. Ahmad al-Bandari, who works at the al-Matariyyah Hospital, received dozens of dead bodies brought from the Rabia al-Adawiya and the al-Nahda Squares. He confirmed that the relatives of those who came to receive the corpses were pressed to sign declarations in the hospital acknowledging the cause of death as suicide in order for the bodies to be released without an autopsy.
Fears bodies would be stolen or incinerated
“I was afraid that his corpse would be stolen or incinerated. There are dozens of missing corpses that were transported to a place which until now nobody knows,” says al-Rizq.
After three days, al-Sadiq’s faimily and al-Rizq succeeded in getting al-Sadiq’s body to the morgue and eventually back to the Anshah al-Rami village for the funeral.
Hundreds of al-Sadiq’s former colleagues and practically the whole village turned out for the funeral. Pro and anti-Morsi supporters came together for the commemoration, where they didn’t sing “suicide,” but “martyr.”
